


star-crossed

by poseidon



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, M/M, Missing Scenes, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 00:19:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8919214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poseidon/pseuds/poseidon
Summary: They're not going to survive. They were never going to survive.





	

K-2SO doesn't remember much before its reprogramming.

Well, technically, it does. Of course it does - it's a droid and its memory circuits are in perfect condition. But there's nothing very memorable about his life before Cassian and the Alliance. Compared to them, the Empire seems like a vague and boring dream.

And Cassian - Captain Cassian Andor - a devoted soldier, a powerful dreamer, a man raised on hope. K-2SO couldn't have asked for a better partner. It’s always been just the two of them – well, mostly Cassian, since he does all the fighting – against the tiny portion of the Empire they happen to be fighting.

“Why don’t you ever let me fight?” it asks him one day, as they set out for another mission.

“I do let you fight,” Cassian replies. “Or is that not what happened between you and those three troopers back there?”

If K-2SO could roll its eyes, it would. “You know what I mean. You don’t let me into firefights, you don’t let me hold a blaster. I’m here to be your backup, but you never let me back you up. Why is that?”

Cassian pauses for a moment, and then shrugs. “Well, you’re my friend, K2, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Oh,” it says, and for once, it has no response. It never really brings up the subject again, but every once in a while, it replays the memory. There’s no reason for it, but that’s what it does.

K-2SO does the calculations on their way to Scarif. on what the results of their mission would be. Repeatedly. It's the same result every time, and it doesn't register until the first bullet hits what those results actually mean.

They're not going to survive. 

They were never going to survive. The mission itself might succeed, if the Alliance proceeds with incredible caution and enough luck to get them through.

But the fact of the matter is, they're not going to make it. Not Cassian Andor, not Jyn Erso, not Chirrut Îmwe, not Baze Malbus, not Bodhi Rook, certainly not K-2SO itself.

They're not getting out of here alive.

It locks the door in its last minutes of functionality, and Cassian's favorite quote comes to mind.

Rebellions are built on hope.

Well, it hopes that they're successful, that everyone else somehow manages to survive and leave this damned planet and destroy the Death Star and save the galaxy. It knows this is all so unlikely, but he can hope.

It's not like he can do anything else.

* * *

Chirrut knows, from the moment he senses Jyn Erso, that she will lead him to his death.

He knows that this is the path the Force has chosen for him, that this is his destiny, that he won't die until he has fulfilled whatever purpose he was sent for.

But there is a part of him that doesn't want it to end. Not like this.

He also knows that Baze won't be alive for long after him, and the thought gives him comfort and pain in equal measure. They haven't been together for very long, not really, and yet Chirrut can remember every single moment they've spent with such clarity and it holds a special place in his heart.

He doesn't tell him that this will be the end, though the Force shows that Baze does have an inkling that they won't make it out alive. There’s so much peace and hope around him and Chirrut sees no reason to dispel that with a fact that hasn’t even set in yet. He takes a deep breath and soaks it all in, the final moments of the calm before the storm.

“You’re staring,” Baze says, deep and comforting voice a welcome intrusion into his thoughts.

"I'm always staring," Chirrut replies with a slight smile. He holds out his hand and Baze takes it in his own calloused fingers. “I have always wondered what you look like, outside of your aura from the Force.” He lets out a heavy sigh and curls his fingers around his hand. “But I suppose it doesn’t matter. I don’t think I could love you any more than I do now.”

He thinks Baze rolls his eyes, but he can hear the immense fondness in his voice as he says, “I don’t know why I put up with you and your ridiculousness.”

Chirrut laughs and the moment seems perfect for the brief time it lasts, until Jyn comes down to tell them that they’re landing.

When Bodhi announces that they need to flip the master switch, everything seems to fade away and Chirrut knows with complete certainty that this is what he must do. And he won't survive it.

He prays while he walks and every single shot misses until he's able to flip the switch. 

It's a small consolation that he doesn't have to die alone, that he gets to fade away into the Force in the arms of the one he loves. He tries to smile at Baze in the end, hoping that's how he'll remember him: not broken, not dying, but at peace.

Finally, at peace.

* * *

Bodhi never really thinks much about his job. He didn’t really have much to begin with – his parents gone, siblings off doing their own business – and when the Empire came to his doorstep with a request for experienced pilots, well, who was he to say no?

So he does his job, delivers cargo to and from various places around the galaxy, and everything is just the way it is.

That is, until he meets Galen Erso.

At first, Bodhi doesn’t really care who this guy is – just someone who he’s supposed to directly deliver some equipment to. He holds out the manifest and Erso signs off on the delivery and that’s that.

And then Erso starts talking to him. Polite conversation at first, things like “how was your trip?” or “bad weather, huh?” and Bodhi replies, “fine” or “yeah, it is”, and somewhere along the line, the answers become longer and the questions become conversations and all of a sudden, the highlights of Bodhi’s trips are when he sees Erso – or, rather, Galen, now.

Sometimes Bodhi stays for a little longer than necessary before he has to do more shipments and he and Galen get lunch at the mess, and sometimes Galen invites him to check out some of the experiments he’s been conducting and while most of it goes over his head, Bodhi thinks it’s all super cool.

The story about his wife and daughter come in increments – passing mentions, small anecdotes, wistful glances – and the whole thing comes together one day when he and Bodhi are sitting by a window in the mess and Galen looks incredibly sad and Bodhi has to ask, “How did you end up here?”

He has no idea that his life is about to change so completely.

The last time they meet, Galen looks like a broken man wearing the cracked façade of a proud one. Their machine is finished, and now he has a mission for Bodhi.

“You have to take this to Jedha,” he says in an urgent whisper. He presses a small drive into Bodhi’s hands and wraps his own around them. “Find Saw Gerrera, tell him you have important information from me for him.”

Bodhi licks his lips. His body feels like it’s on fire. “I – I don’t know if I –”

Galen squeezes his hands, steps a little closer, looks at him with his piercing gaze. “You can do this, Bodhi, I know you can. You and I are both working for something we shouldn’t, something more powerful and dangerous than anything we could’ve imagined. But you can do this, you can make this right. Please.”

There’s a second that seems to last for an eternity, and Bodhi nods. Galen pulls him close and kisses him, briefly, right on the lips, and Bodhi rides that high all the way until Jedha.

When he finally meets Jyn Erso, he wonders who Galen thought of – this woman, or the young girl he’d left behind all those years ago – when he did his quiet part of rebellion for all those long, torturous years.

_You can make this right_ , Bodhi thinks, and it rings in his ears with every heartbeat the moment they land on Scarif and he starts to work – to act – to do something to make sure that the Death Star gets destroyed before it can destroy any more.

He sees the bomb and there’s not enough time for the fear and panic to set in before it goes off.

* * *

Baze doesn’t know how many times he’s listened to Chirrut pray.

The mantra has somehow become ingrained into his very being, and sometimes he finds himself whispering along some nights, when it’s just the two of them against the rest of the world. Or, well, what remains of Jedha – nothing’s left since the Empire came to take it.

“You’re always so positive about these things,” Baze says, watching Chirrut smile at some strange woman.

“That is because I have my faith in the Force,” Chirrut replies. He’s still smiling.

Baze himself never really cared much for the Force, not until he met Chirrut, and somehow he thinks he cares for it even less now. Sure, it’s nice to have something to blame if everything goes to shit, but credit should go where credit is due when things go right – and usually that’s because he can shoot really well before Chirrut gets himself into even more trouble.

Chirrut says, “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me,” and then rushes into battle. And Baze is always there to make sure he’s there to fight another day. They’re a team, a couple, two halves of a whole, and that’s how it’s always been.

And then, right before he’s about to go and turn the switch, Chirrut says, “I don’t need luck, I have you,” and Baze knows that Chirrut is about to die. It doesn’t stop him from shooting, from screaming, from trying to get the one he loves to safety, but in the end, he dies right in his arms, praying like he’s always done.

Baze doesn’t want to say the exact same thing – it seems like an insult, because it is – it _was_ – always Chirrut’s prayer. So he says it in reverse.

“The Force is with me and I am one with the Force,” he whispers quietly, holding Chirrut’s head in his arms. It seems right to say it like this, to honor his memory, for the brief moments of life that he himself has left.

The Force must appreciate it too, because Baze gets to see Chirrut one last time before he’s blown to pieces. It’s not the way he’d want to die, but he’ll take it.

* * *

Cassian is six when he joins the Rebellion. He’s ten when he’s given a blaster and he’s sixteen when he makes his first kill.

He doesn’t talk about his family. Whenever someone asks, he always smiles and says, “This rebellion is my family.” People always appreciate the sentiment, but he does mean it. This rebellion is everything to him – he has nothing left.

His family died when he was five, and the saddest day of his life afterward is when he forgets the sound of his mother’s laughter, the look of his brother’s smile, the feeling of his father’s presence. There’s a picture of them in his quarters and he looks at it every single day to remind himself of what the Empire has cost him, and what he must do to make sure they can never do something like this ever again.

He rises up the ranks more swiftly than any other officer, taking on the toughest and most grueling of missions, to the point where Mon Mothma herself comes to him after a debriefing and asks, “Are you all right, Cassian?”

“I’m fine,” he says, forcing a smile.

“You’ve been taking a lot of difficult tasks as of late,” she says. “We’re concerned you may be overexerting yourself.”

“I’m just doing my part,” he replies. “It’s all I can do, and I should give it my all. After all, we are the last line of defense between the Empire and total domination.”

Mothma sighs. “Some would say that the line has already been crossed.”

Cassian shakes his head. “We can’t talk like that, ma’am, or we’ll lose the best weapon we’ve got.”

“And what is that?”

“Hope.” He smiles, briefly, and walks back to his ship.

Hope stays with him, throughout their entire mission, from Jedha to Edu to Scarif. He holds it in his heart and keeps it buried there and lets its light shine within him and guide him to wherever he needs to go.

Bodhi’s hands shake as he flies the plane deeper into Scarif and Cassian puts a gentle hand on his shoulder. “It’s going to be okay,” he says. “We’re going to succeed. We’re going to make it through.”

Bodhi looks up at him. “You really think so?”

“I do,” Cassian says, and he really does. He can’t let himself think otherwise.

When he sees the light of the blast, he thinks of his family once again. They’d died quickly, painlessly, and they’d died together. He pulls Jyn close, glad that he doesn’t have to die alone.

_We did it_ , he thinks, in his final moments. _We won._

* * *

Jyn’s last thought is of her parents. She’s glad she’ll be able to see them soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Really interested in making some of these snippets into fully-fledged fics, so hit me up on my [tumblr](http://poeorgana.tumblr.com/) if you want to nag me into doing that


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